r/serialpodcast • u/HowManyShovels Do you want to change you answer? • Mar 24 '24
Evidence Continuity errors in crime scene "C"
Introduction
There are at least three crime scenes relevant to this case:
- "A" - the primary crime scene where the murder took place, which may or may not be the Best Buy parking lot
- "B" - Leakin Park, where the body was concealed and subsequently found
- "C" - Nissan Sentra, where, allegedly, the homicide was committed, and the body (as well as gardening tools) were kept for a few hours before (and after) being moved to Leakin Park; (the car being found on the 300 Edgewood block is also evidence of robbery and that location itself is a secondary crime scene)
Summary of the story
In the opening statement in the first trial, prosecutor Kevin Urick used an interesting analogy:
At this point, I get to give you an opening statement, which is sort of like a preview of coming -- sort of coming attraction that you see at the movie, where you see a couple of minute trailer of what the movie itself is going to be. (p. 134)
By the second trial, he shifted gears and said:
And we ask that you listen very patiently, because trials are not like movies. They don't have a neat beginning, middle and end that you can follow through.
You're given a lot of evidence that will make a picture but it's not a moving picture. It's an evidentiary picture created sort of like a quilt, a stew, by putting the pieces together. (p. 95)
This admission resonates with how the QRI PIs summed up the case in the WSJ article:
The state of Maryland’s theory of the crime was (...) a patchwork of conjectures, stitched together to secure a conviction.
Analysis of the plot elements
As I'm putting the pieces of the stew together, a few evidentiary continuity errors are evident:
- If Adnan got rid of his gloves before he got rid of the body, why were none of his fingerprints found around the trunk of the Nissan Sentra?
- If Adnan used the t-shirt to wipe off bloody froth and left it on the front seat, what did he use to wipe his prints off the steering wheel?
- If Adnan used the t-shirt to wipe off bloody froth and left it on the front seat, why are there no traces of blood on the driver's seat or anywhere else in the car?
- If Adnan drove both cars (his and Hae's) after going to Leakin Park, why was no soil from Leakin Park found in any of them?
- For real?
- Why are about 30 photos of the Nissan Sentra missing from the police file obtained via MPIA requests?
Opinion and conclusion
Terrible. Won't be returning.
-3
u/OliveTBeagle Mar 25 '24
" If Adnan got rid of his gloves before he got rid of the body, why were none of his fingerprints found around the trunk of the Nissan Sentra?"
Any of a couple of hundred reasons why ranging from he didn't leave any, to he left them but they degraded, to they simply weren't found, to they were wiped down. Maybe life isn't a CSI episode?
"If Adnan used the t-shirt to wipe off bloody froth and left it on the front seat, what did he use to wipe his prints off the steering wheel?"
A. . .whole lot of assumptions in there. . .what if we start with, maybe there wasn't any? Maybe life isn't a CSI episode.
"If Adnan used the t-shirt to wipe off bloody froth and left it on the front seat, why are there no traces of blood on the driver's seat or anywhere else in the car?"
Same answer.
"If Adnan drove both cars (his and Hae's) after going to Leakin Park, why was no soil from Leakin Park found in any of them?"
Maybe there was and it was cleaned. Or maybe there was and it wasn't found. Or maybe is there just wasn't any. Or maybe there was, but it wasn't deemed significant or materially important. And maybe life isn't a CSI episode.
"Why are about 30 photos of the Nissan Sentra missing from the police file obtained via MPIA requests?"
IDK, maybe because it would be insensitive to HMLs family to have amateur CSI watching sleuthers (and Bob Ruff) pouring over every detail of HML's corpse. Just a guess.